Li Hanyi was glad she hadn’t eaten yet, or she’d have thrown up in a discrete corner.

Yue Yuan had not achieved any of his substantial injuries through training. Training implied that the person on the other side intended for him to have learned something in the process. This hadn’t been training but a merciless beat-down. She hated it all the more after learning far too much about her sect’s head peak and how it functioned.

Yue Yuan’s beating had been at his shizun’s hands. At the hands of the very man who led their sect. This hadn’t been the first time and probably wouldn’t be the last, but at least this time Yue Yuan had the sense left to hop on a nameless spiritual training sword and fly himself to medical attention. But nothing changed the fact that his shizun had done this damage and had the audacity to call it training.

What did it say about her that her first thought was that her sect leader didn’t deserve his position if he abused children under his own roof? Where was her loyalty? Was it nothing compared to the morals and ethics of modern China?

Cultivators healed quickly. That speed was probably the only thing keeping anyone from noticing Yue Yuan’s injuries. But now she knew that they were happening, and Li Hanyi was not a fan. Her modern sensibilities were enraged by the thought of a grown immortal adult abusing the powers of his position and responsibilities to treat his most dedicated disciple so very poorly.

Li Hanyi shouldn’t have considered the merits of deposing the leader of her sect. But, oh, oh how she briefly considered how to replace him with her own shizun. Wang Huo was a much better teacher and parental figure, surely he’d do better. Sure, it would make Yue Yuan even more likely to pester her for things, but wasn’t that worth it to avoid… all of this?

His arm was swollen because it had been wrenched from its socket, his eye was blackened in the clearest imprint of a fist. Several ribs were cracked and his breathing hitched on every inhale. Yue Yuan had taken too many blows from his shizun at full strength, blood flecking his lips as he coughed.

Airplane did barely any research when made up his world’s take on ancient Chinese medicine and it was obvious. Bleeding from chest trauma? Stick some needles in the torso region, jolt her qi in to support his own, and hope for the best. Internal bleeding wasn’t a crisis in ancient fantasy China, not when a strong emotion would make someone randomly cough up literal globs of blood.

Li Hanyi had studied this nonsensical system for years and had a pretty decent understanding of it. She didn’t need to agree with it, simply combined it with the basic first aid knowledge her first life had given her. Bleeding externally? Slap some bandages on it and an antibiotic if she had one. An arm out of its socket should be put back in, that was just common sense.

But broken ribs? Slap a poultice on it, wrap up the whole torso, and call it a day. Li Hanyi couldn’t say if it was truly the most effective medical treatment, but it was what she had been trained to do. Besides, it worked in every period and fantasy drama she had ever watched. And, since this world was built on the Rule of Cool, it was guaranteed to work here.

Yue Yuan looked like a pincushion from all the needles she’d jabbed into the areas around his injuries. His meridians had a needle each, even the ones on his feet and hands. “Is— Li-langzhong, is all this really necessary?”

“Do you want to heal faster so you can go back to being beaten up by your shizun? Then yes.” Every part of her chafed at the thought, from her modern sensibilities to her oaths as a healer, but the very necessity of it made her act. There was no way either of them could stand up against the very head of their sect. All she could do was patch him up and send him back.

But maybe… maybe there was something else that she could do. “What kind of monster uses his strength and position to prey on those under his tutelage?” A seed of doubt was carefully planted as she wrapped his knuckles gently.

Yue Yuan winced. “Shizun is just looking out for me and correcting my mistakes in training.”

“Is he now,” she hummed idly before strumming her qi across his. “Seems to me that anything that ends with someone in the care of Qian Cao, sneaking in like a dirty little secret, is to be avoided at all costs.” His pained cries as her qi ran across the jagged parts of his was just an unpleasant side-effect. “It isn’t right and you know that.”

“What choice do I have,” he bit out around each pained groan. “I have to be better. Stronger, strong enough to go back for him. Just like I promised.”

So, that was why he was so desperate. Yue Yuan had made a promise to go back for someone who was ostensibly in a situation worse than what Yue Yuan was in. Such loyalty was the stuff of ballads. That kind of loyalty should have been inspiring. It just offended Li Hanyi. “You can’t go back for him if you can’t even stand up straight.”

He grabbed her sleeve with his undamaged hand. “But that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To patch me back up?”

Here was the problem with letting plot-important characters into her life. They asked for more and more while giving less and less, depending on a charitable kindness she didn’t feel. “No. Helping a member of my sect is one thing. I am not your personal doctor.”

“But aren’t you already Liu Feng’s personal doctor,” he asked with one of those older brotherly smiles that put her hackles up. “Couldn’t you take just one more patient?”

Over her dead body. She’d never be able to break and run from the sect if the future sect leader turned her into any kind of close friend or associate. “No. Liu Feng is my friend. You are not. The only thing I’m going to do is patch you up this time. I hope you paid attention, because this was your only free treatment.”

Yue Yuan looked shocked. Not that Li Hanyi cared what he thought, not when he was turning into a harbinger of her own demise, but she could determine at least why he was so shocked. People in this world were rarely this blunt. What she did not understand was why his shock slowly transformed into another one of those smiles.

“I think you two would get along. I’ll introduce you after I go get him.” He nodded, then winced as the motion pulled something in his waist.

Yue Yuan did not understand the concept of the word “no”. Li Hanyi shook her head derisively. This idiot needed to get out of her clinic before he tried to infect her with his stupidity. No friend of Yue Yuan’s was going to waltz into her clinic with aspirations of forced friendship. “Nope, that’s not happening. You’re as good as you’re going to get without resting and some basic cultivation to speed it along. Out, before you turn my hair any whiter than it already is.”

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***

That should have been the end of it. Her life should have become nothing but studying for her exam in two years, tutoring her little shidis, and training off and on with Liu Feng. Yue Yuan was no longer a problem, she had her B-Points from it, and nothing tangentially related to the plot should have happened to disturb her peace and quiet. Nothing at all.

That did not explain why Shang Fenhua had just popped her bedroom window open and climbed over the edge like he belonged there.

“Miao-meimei,” he whined. “You have to help me.” He looked harried, like he had been unexpectantly over-worked, his hair frazzled as if he had been running his hands nervously through it.

Li Hanyi wanted to shove him over the windowsill. She was beginning to consider the merits of locking her window at night, but then with her luck she’d just get pebbles thrown at it instead. “No. It’s too early for plot and I’m not helping you bring pyramid schemes to this poor world.”

Shang Fenhua paused, head tilted as he thought about her words. “You actually considered how to run pyramid schemes here? Amazing.” He shook his head if to clear the thought. “But no, that isn’t what I need your help with. Miaomiao-meimei, I’m begging you.”

Whatever it was, it had been enough to send him into her room in the middle of the night. She sat up in her bed, crossed her arms over her chest, and scowled up at Shang Fenhua. “Fine, you might as well come right on in then. What nonsense medical problem can I help you with today? Crotch rot? Migraines? Carpal tunnel?”

Shang Fenhua crossed over to her bed and knelt in front of it. “It isn’t medical. Well, it was medical. It’s— it’s my king, you see. Mobei-jun.”

“Didn’t I fix him already? What, did somebody try to kill him again? I’m not responsible for that.: When he left her clinic, the soon-to-be demon lord had been as well-healed as modern sense and ancient fantasy Chinese medicine could make him. If he walked back into an ambush or something, that wasn’t her fault.

He nervously flailed in her general direction. “No, no! Nothing like that! My king wants to thank you, meimei.”

She blinked slowly as she tried to comprehend what Shang Fenhua was saying. “He’s… he’s welcome? I was already compensated for it. Just keep him out of my clinic in the future.”

Shang Fenhua had the grace to wince. “My king wants me to deliver gifts to my meimei as his personal thanks.” He delivered the damning words with an uncharacteristic solemnity.

Li Hanyi paused, blanched, and slid backward on her bed further away from Shang Fenhua. “Airplane. Give it to me straight. I can’t say no, can I?”

“Not really. I mean, you could. You shouldn’t. Because then he’ll just send me back with more.” He gave a nervous little laugh. “He’ll think his gifts were insufficient.”

“He’s— he’s not trying to buy me as his personal doctor, right? No ulterior motives here?” It was worth asking, especially with the last patient she’d had trying to win his way into her good graces for the very same reason.

He winced again. “Part of his gifts are apparently in case he needs your services in the future. He said he wanted you at your best if that happened.” Shang Fenhua looked as thrilled with the idea as she felt. “You don’t… you don’t have to hitch your cart to Mobei-jun like I have. Miao-meimei, your plan to be a hermit is still a very good one. I’m the desperate one here.”

“Still can’t say no, though,” she said flatly. “It gets worse if I say no.” Li Hanyi snapped her fingers in a come hither motion, bidding him to bring forth her newest headache. “Fine. Show me what he sent.”

Shang Fenhua lit up. “If it helps any, I think you’ll like what he sent,” he chattered as he began removing three black boxes from his qiankun pouch. “My king asked me about you, and I tried not to give him the impression that you wanted marriage any time in the next century.”

Li Hanyi nodded, opened the first box, then closed it just as quickly. “Airplane,” she said shrilly. “This is worth a fortune.” The hairpin in the box was a strange silvery-white metal that almost glowed, decorated with strings of delicate yellow gems. It was the sort of hairpin designed for a woman.

If she was right, it was also part of a wife plot. Entry number two hundred and sixty-seven on her spreadsheet, this hairpin was worth more than three designer handbags. Someone had died for Mobei-jun to get his hands on it.

She loved it.

The only problem was that she couldn’t wear it. Aside from the fact that it was worth a small fortune, she couldn’t wear something like this and still maintain her cover as a man. It was truly a gift for a young woman, the younger sister of a trusted servant who had performed a service for a prince that she should never have needed to.

“My king won’t take it back,” Shang Fenhua said with a grin. “It’s yours now.” He flapped his hands at the second of the three boxes. “Open the next one. He had me help with that. I guarantee you’ll like this one more.”

The second box, the same black lacquered wood as the first, was twice as large and thick as the first. She opened it slowly, then froze as she looked down at the contents. This gift was just as expensive as the first, probably more so considering that there was no one else who would find a gift like this as practical more than it was opulent.

It was a half-mask, made of that same silvery metal and embellished with the same pale yellow gems. The mask was solid at the bottom where it would hug her cheek and lips, a delicate filigree that branched to curve over her nose and under her eyes. It curved around her face, was lined with impossibly soft white leather from some unknown demonic beast, and had indisputably been made to turn her disfigurement into an asset.

“Airplane. What—,” she stammered.

“My king decided that you needed to be able to see with both eyes if he needed your assistance and expertise again,” he said with pride, chest puffed out like he himself had come up with the idea. “Isn’t my second male lead so considerate?”

It was practical, beautiful, made just for her, and probably the nicest gift she had ever received. All she had done was save his life, and clearly Mobei-jun appreciated it. “No more bandages for me,” she giggled, running her fingers over the metal reverently. No, not even in her wildest dreams did she think that the heir to the Mobei clan would reward her like this.

There was still one more box to open. She almost didn’t want to, not after the price of the first two, but Shang Fenhua’s expectant face had her pulling the last box towards her lap with a heavy sigh. It clinked gently as it moved, the sound of porcelain against wood. Carefully, she removed the lid and stared down in shock.

“Airplane. Are these… demon drugs?” The box contained a bevy of little jars, their names clearly written on them by someone with a very steady hand, that resembled the jars she normally used to store medicines. It had a note, gently placed in the middle, written in a bold and authoritative hand: To replace what was used.

It was unsigned, but the bold handwriting could only have come from the future Mobei-jun. The intent combined with the boxes’ contents was really all the confirmation she needed on that front.

Airplane shrugged nonchalantly like he didn’t realize that he had just handed over a small fortune in extremely difficult-to-obtain herbs. “If by that you mean drugs from the Demon Realm? Probably. I didn’t exactly stop to ask.”

Unsurprising when even a raised eyebrow and a sharp word would send him into full-on survival mode. Airplane was many things, but strong-willed and brave were not in the mix. If his king told him to jump, Shang Fenhua would be in the air before asking why. His king said to deliver gifts to his meimei, so he did.

But that left Li Hanyi in a bit of a dilemma.

“Shang Fenhua. Airplane. Bro. Idiot author. How did Mobei-jun get it into his head that I’m your little sister?” The third gift was practical, the second meaningful, but the first? The first was a problem.

He paled., nervously fluttering his hands as he tried to look everywhere but at Li Hanyi. “Ah, well. You see. I may have, accidentally mind you, called you meimei while he was conscious. It was an accident!”

The cat was out of the bag now.

She was going to die.